How do human societies influence crop evolution processes? Researchers from CIRAD and their partners recently demonstrated that sorghum genetic diversity distribution in eastern Kenya was linked to the ethnolinguistic origin of farmers. Taking this into account would make genetic resource collection and characterization programmes more efficienct. This is a major issue for resource conservation.

In the highlands of Madagascar, upland rice is often affected by blast, a fungal disease that can devastate crops. Does conservation agriculture, which is practised to control erosion in this hill region, affect the development of the disease? Researchers from CIRAD and FOFIFA carried out five years of trials on serveral upland rice varieties. The results were mixed: while conservation agriculture does reduce the impact of the disease, it also delays growth, which penalizes yields, particularly for the most sensitive varieties.

Payments for environmental services are often presented as "market-based" instruments, since they modify incentives, although recourse to true markets is exceptional. While it is essentially rights of iownership that are exchanged on a market, this is not the case with most payments for environmental services, in which rights of use are suspended by contract. This is the theory put forward by two CIRAD researchers in a book published recently. According to them, the market concept is used metaphorically as much by "all-market" partisans, to discredit regulations, as by their adversaries, who liken financial incentives to "markets", without either party explaining the concept they are using. While the authors rule out the idea of the commodification of nature, they do stress the risks surrounding the potential extent of partial nature conservation motives were such payments to become widespread.

The market garden region of Chaouia on the Moroccan coast went through a severe economic crisis in the 1990s. The reason was the over-use of groundwater supplise and its disastrous consequences for production, and also a lack of dialogue between the authorities and farmers with a view to finding solutions. How could a debate be launched to tackle that over-use and revive production? Researchers from CIRAD and their partners worked to help farmers and representatives of the authorities take a joint look at the possible ways in which the territory could change. The operation looks promising, at a time when climate change will require ever greater capacity to adapt.

The mantled floral abnormality, which affects oil palms produced by in vitro cloning, is of epigenetic origin and causes a malformation of the stamens. Researchers from CIRAD, the IRD and FELDA set out to understand how the epigenetic regulation defect in abnormal palms affects one of the main genes that control stamen development. The aim was to understand the mechanisms that trigger the abnormality and, eventually, to develop an early detection test.

They were thought to be sedentary during their solitary phase, whereas they can travel several kilometres. Populations were considered fragile, whereas they are actually perfectly suited to their environment and much larger than previously thought. Desert locusts had us all fooled. A team from CIRAD recently demonstrated this through a wide-ranging genetic study in collaboration with numerous African partners.